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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Guest Post & Giveaway: Shane KP O'Neill

I am pleased to welcome Shane KP O'Neill, author of The Dracula Chronicles: Bound by Blood, a gothic horror novel featuring who else, Vlad Dracul, and his sons, one an angel and one a devil. Shane is here today to discuss what is was like to re-create a legend and infuse his own brand of fiction within the legend that already exists. As someone who has always been fascinated by the legends and tales of Count Dracula, I certainly can't wait to sink my teeth into these tales of horror and mayhem. Please pardon the pun!!! Take a look.

The Dracula
Chronicles is the brilliant and terrifying new concept of Dracula. It is an
epic journey through the ages where the forces of Light and Darkness struggle
for supremacy until the Second Great War, as foretold in the Book of
Revelations. This bitter feud began after the creation of mankind. Lucifer’s
jealousy leads to the First Great War of the angels. Hundreds of thousands of
years on the feud simmers beneath the surface. It plots the course of history
as we know it today. Both sides manipulate the major players through the
centuries to seek an advantage over the other.

On a cold night in December 1431
in Sighisoara an old gypsy woman delivers a prophecy to the great Vlad Dracul.
She tells him he is about to sire two sons, one an angel and the other a devil.
He returns to his fortress just as his wife bears him a son, whom he names
Vlad. In the very same moment across the country on the border between
Transylvania and Hungary a gypsy girl gives birth to another son, Andrei. The
die is cast. The twin souls are born. The young Vlad Dracula becomes the
instrument of the forces of Darkness. To balance this, the baby Andrei is
blessed by the angels and bestowed with awesome powers. These chronicles are
their story.

THE RE-CREATION OF A LEGEND

There are few
names in popular culture today as famous as that of Dracula.I would go as far as to say that in the
western world the name conjures up an image of one description or another for
anyone who hears it, anyone above the age of twelve at least.For me personally, as a youngster anyway and
even now to an extent, I see the face of Christopher Lee, who will always enjoy
immortality as the on-screen icon.Of
course, the name Dracula is not limited only to western culture.

For his iconic
status in the modern age I guess we need to thank Bram Stoker, who gave us
Dracula the vampire for the very first time back in 1897.From that time forward, his literary classic
haunted the imaginations of his countless readers.Of course, over a dozen actors have taken up
the mantle of Dracula on the big screen, beginning with Max Schreck’s Nosferatu
in 1922.Notable mentions to those who
have followed in his footsteps and helped cement the legend that is Dracula
would include Gary Oldman, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr, Gerard Butler, John
Carradine and the best of all, Christopher Lee.

And then there
is Dracula the man, the true legend, but about whom so little is known by the
wider audience that is captivated by the on-screen vampire. This was a man famous in his own times, as the
ruler of Wallachia – one of the three main states that form modern Romania
today.He was a man famed for his
brutality, even in his own day, and whose method of punishment brought him
notoriety long after he was gone.When
people hear the name Vlad the Impaler, they are a little more familiar with the
man I am describing.

So, when the
legend already exists, and there are few bigger than this one, how do you
create something new?How do you breathe
life into a subject that has already had so many incarnations be it on screen,
in books or in historical texts?What
can you write that will capture the imagination of those that already adore
Dracula and survive the obvious scrutiny that is sure to come?It goes without saying that any such
undertaking is never likely to be easy.If it is to succeed then it will have to be something special and
something that stands apart.

The first
question anyone ever asks me when he/she learns I am a writer, is naturally, “What
do you write?”When I tell them the
subject of my books is Dracula, I always see the scepticism in their eyes.Even if it is unintended it is always there,
and this is the point I am trying to address.How do you write on a subject that everyone holds a pre-conception of,
in a way that is not only going to capture their attention, but also their
imagination?If they take the time to
investigate further and allow me to explain the concept and premise of my books,
then the expression and the look of doubt inevitably changes.And it is then I know I have something in my
possession that will draw interest over a wide spectrum and possibly see the
birth of a new legend.

I have always
had my own love affair with Dracula, with both the vampire and the famed
voivode.He has intrigued me for decades
and given me many a late night trying to understand and know the man he
was.I have always wanted to write, but
more significantly, I have always wanted to write about him.I wanted to write about both Dracula the man
and Dracula the vampire.Even in the
earliest days of my project I knew it was going to need to be something
grandiose and epic in scope.And that is
what I set out to create.Nine years on
and three books later, The Dracula Chronicles is well on the way to achieving
this.

My task,
therefore, was to formulate a concept where I could focus on building the world
of Dracula the man and move into fantasy with Dracula the vampire and
successfully blend the two together.I
based my premise on the aftermath of the first Great War of the Angels.This war is a consequence of Lucifer’s
jealousy upon the creation of mankind, which causes a great divide in Heaven
and results in him and those that had sided with him to be cast out.To end the carnage, God agrees a truce with
Lucifer.One of the terms of the truce
is that they would contest the soul of every man, though without any physical
interference.If at any time Lucifer controls
a greater number of souls then he can return again to Heaven and oversee the
end of mankind.

When it seems
that Lucifer might triumph, God sends His son who is then crucified to free man
from sin.This undoes all of Lucifer’s
work and leaves him in the same position as he was after the truce.However, on the day of the Crucifixion the
Catholic Church is born.Fourteen
hundred years on Lucifer comes to believe if he can destroy the institution of
the Catholic Church then he can turn man against God once more.The candidate he chooses for this immense
task is the young Vlad Dracula.In the
moment the young Dracula breathes life, so does his half-brother to a gypsy
woman on the other side of the country.The Powers of Light bestow the baby Andrei with great power as a balance
to Dracula.

This is the
point where I build the world of Dracula the man and create Dracula the
man.There have been a few noble
attempts by others to do this and I am aware of another in progress at the
moment.However, the best effort I have
read was that written by Michael Augustyn.But even then, his book fell short of what I was looking for personally
in Dracula the man.So with the first
two tomes, The Gates Of Babylon and Descent To Darkness I have created his
world.I have built a profile of a most
amazing man with his struggles, his conflicts, his loves and his triumphs.Despite the image the history books convey of
him, my readers will fall in love with Vlad Dracula.I daresay he will be as popular with readers,
despite the antagonist of the series from Book 3 onwards, as his brother, Andrei,
who is the protagonist of the story.It
is in Book 3, Bound By Blood, that I give you Dracula the vampire, as created
by Lucifer.He then begins his journey
through the ages to bring down the institution of the Catholic Church.

So for those of
you out there who may have been waiting for something new from Dracula, or even
just a return to the traditional vampire with a little something different, I
give you the Dracula Chronicles.

A prequel to the
series is available now to give a feel for the Chronicles, with Bound By Blood
coming out on December 1st.I
invite you to join Dracula and I on our journey through time.

Book Trailer

Giveaway
One lucky reader will win one signed copy of Bound by Blood. Open internationally. Contest ends 30 November 2012.

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